Nigel Ward’s ARTOPIA Presentation Friday 29th May was well-attended (approaching 200 people saw the presentation). The overwhelming majority (98%) expressed strong support for the project, though there were 3 dissenting voices, one of which was quite coherent; the point being made that other community/arts projects elsewhere had apparently failed, convincing grounds for never again attempting a community/arts project.

Pete Budd passed around his famous hat, and £117.90 was collected to partially defray the £185 hire of the Coliseum.

Mr John Riby (SBC’s Head of Technical Services) told the audience that, notwithstanding the Maritime Museum element of the project, any change from a port usage would require a Harbour Revision Order, and cautioned that such a process might take 12 or 13 years.

Despite Whitby Town Council resolving last month to send a letter to SBC requiring that a community use of the Shed should remain an option, Mr Riby told us that he was committed to knocking it down and extending the car park, or leasing/selling the building to private enterprise for industrial purposes. Three weeks ago, Mr Riby told Mr Ward that if the will was there the Harbour Revision Order could be ratified within two to three months. Mr Riby’s history of truthfully reporting the facts is on the public record.

Whitby Town Council ex-Mayor, Steve Smith, offered his support to Mr Riby’s two-pronged proposal.

Members of the audience, however, were keen to fill in the ‘We Want Your Input’ forms, with space for yoga/healing activities the most popular suggestion. Another suggestion was a cinema/theatre.

Asked for a reaction to the event, Mr Ward said, ”It boils down to taking your pick between three options: an extended car park, an industrial site, or Artopia – I think it is a no-brainer. Given the location – right in the centre of Whitby, who in their right mind could support Mr Riby’s two-pronger? Having wasted around quarter of a million pounds on business rates so far, SBC are keen to claw back some income from the car park option. They have no plans to spend it here in Whitby. A charitable foundation feeding its profits straight back into Whitby is the last thing SBC wants. But it’s not their town – it’s ours. Government policy supports our bid, and the Tories even more so. Whichever way the General Election goes, the new thinking calls for a return of responsibility and control to our communities. SBC’s reign of self-interest is coming to an end. Whitby Town Council is weak, ineffectual and inadequately mandated. I would expect the new Whitby & Esk Valley Community Council to step in and recover many of the public assets that have been systemically stripped by SBC, and to sue them for 35 years of negligence and dereliction of statutory duty.”

Isn’t it illuminating to note that those of us who love our town and its beautiful surrounding countryside are giving freely of our time and our talents to counteract the long-standing negligence – some say sabotage – of our Local Authority?

I have had a flat refusal from SBC’s Brian Bennett to offer ANT support to WHITBY IN SHORTS – though he knows full well that it is a charitable and unfunded Whitby initiative. We have seen one superb local festival bite the dust recently – and it’s not just lack of support; it’s obstacle in the form of mountainous piles of red tape.

Enough!

I then proposed a radical plan to have the Whitby Endeavour Wharf Cargo Shed, a derelict Scarborough Borough Council port building, asset-transferred to Whitby, for redevelopment as a cinema/theatre/film-TV studio and entertainment complex, including a Historic Ships’ Maritime Museum. This proposal meets present government guidelines regarding the importance of vibrant town-centres and has been widely welcomed by politicians and third-sector nabobs. Asset-transfers are hot stuff, and the DTA has a pot of cash for a ‘showcase’ example, and has already ear-marked the Yorkshire Coast as the preferred location.

Whitby Town Council is unable to help because their credibility is zero due to 35 years of Whitby grievances against SBC’s negligence of Whitby infrastructure. I discovered, with difficulty, that WTC consists of 38% co-opted (ie: un-mandated) Councillors. I find this appalling. If the House of Commons were 38% co-opted (ie: internally appointed) there would be civil war!

So I have utilised certain lawful provisions of the Local Government Act 1972 to call a Parish Poll – a referendum – asking the electorate of Whitby if they would like a Local Authority independent of SBC. At the Town Assembly, the motion was carried almost unanimously, with the added item asking if the people of Whitby would like the co-opted Councillors to resign to precipitate an Election that could return a fully-mandated Council. That is democracy.

Following the meeting, I was approached by a Mr Turner, who tells me that in other towns around the country, similar community initiatives are making similar attemptes to re-organise local government from the grass roots up.

My own plans call for a new local authority comprising the triangle define roughly by Boggle Hole/Robin Hood’s bay (in the south), Commondale (in the west) and Staithes (in the north). – essentially the Esk Valley catchment – with Whitby the ‘county town’ of this coherent geographical region.

Recent meetings with many local politicians lead me to believe that the overwhelming community demand for this kind of re-organisation is polarising the politicos into two groups – reactionary and radical. Curiously, the most reactionary are the unelected.

I believe that, for many reasons economic and political, there are changes afoot in the entire western world (and beyond) at present. My opinion is that more localised government can take advantage of the positive contribution people are now ready to give to their communities – but not to their political representatives (especially those co-opted/appointed).

A month or two from now, this will be manifesting itself all over the country. It is a force for change, and for the better. Please exercise your right to choose the people and the system you want to run Whitby and its beautiful Esk Valley.

I have had no respone.

I have emailed the Editor offering to fully explain the ‘Plan B’ which he opined was missing from our strategy in his Editorial in last Friday’s paper.

I have had no response.

I would be overjoyed to have the opportunity to fully outline ‘Plan B’, as the Editor likes to characterize it. I would call it ‘Plan A+’.

Readers who would like to hear about it are free to petition the Editor to that effect.

I will be screening a Video Presentation of the ‘ARTOPIA’ Project at the Coliseum on Friday 29th May, where the public will be admitted FREE OF CHARGE, from 7:00pm, to watch it. It will be screened as many times as is necessary to allow as many as want to see it to do so.

Come on, WHITBY Gazette! Remember which town you are reporting on. And for. Our 90p per week is what’s keeping you afloat, don’t you know?

When a space becomes available, the council should take a full page in the gazette and make a real effort to get people to stand. There’s some clever blokes in Whitby. They probably dispair of getting any sense out of the sorry lot we have at the moment. That Steve Smith is unbelievable. “Neither the Town Council nor SBC have to take people’s views into account”.

Too bloody right they do, mate.

Question is, do the people have to take Steve Smith’s views into account?

On yer bike, Steve. You’ve got delusions of grandma!

Yes, there should be a vote: who, in good conscience, would vote no? We can do this: let’s make it happen!

Billy Scoresby: BS for short [no BS!]

I’ve just been dealing with a Ryedale group of local councillors. I have to say that the self-serving and apathetic attitude of some of these people dismays me. Building on green-belt, fingers-in-pies… etc.

I know that not everybody is the same, but this feeling of malaise is hard to shake off.

Apathy is never a good thing – let’s shake it up a bit in Whitby!

Alan